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Focus: Will size matter at Highbury?

By Chris Harris

Pop into your local bookmaker today and you'll see that
Juventus are an outside bet to win at Highbury this evening. Yes,
that's the same Juventus who strolled to the Serie A title last
year, are eight points clear this season and have a plentiful
supply of world-class talent and big-match experience at their
disposal.

Arsène Wenger will not take Juventus as lightly as the
oddsmakers seem to be. But while he searches for a way to win
without Campbell, Ljungberg, Cole and company, there are two big
names he won't have to plan for tonight - Pavel Nedved and
Alessandro del Piero.

The Czech playmaker is suspended and the Italian striker was
injured during the Bianconeri's 1-1 draw with Roma at the
weekend. Both add creativity to a well-oiled Juve machine and both
would have featured tonight. With Nedved and Del Piero back in
Turin, coach Fabio Capello has a tactical dilemma to solve.

"Nedved and Del Piero would have given Juventus more
options going forward so it now comes down to whether Capello wants
to have a more attacking team in the first leg or go a bit more
defensive," says Gabriele Marcotti of Corriere dello
Sport.

"If he goes for an attacking line-up then Adrian Mutu will
play wide on the left. If he chooses a more conservative formation,
Giorgio Chiellini could play on the left flank. He is a bit raw and
normally plays at left back, but he might go into midfield to add
some physical presence if Wenger opts for five across the
middle.

"The other option is to play Chiellini at left back and
move Gianluca Zambrotta to the right to help contain Thierry Henry,
as he likes to drift out to those areas."

Predictably, the return of Patrick Vieira has dominated the
build-up to the first leg. However, if can you get past those
headlines, tonight's game has the makings of an intriguing
tactical battle. Marcotti can see reasons for both managers to be
cheerful.

"Wenger will have watched Juve's game on Saturday and
he would have seen the parallel between his side and Roma. Roma had
their three main strikers injured so they played with a number of
attacking midfielders and no real reference point up front. Their
tactics were similar to Arsenal's against Real Madrid.

"Roma's approach caused a lot of problems for Juventus
because their defenders were not marking anyone. The temptation was
to step forward into midfield - where Juve were outnumbered - but
then they left space in behind, and that's something Thierry
Henry would exploit if Juve did it again.

"The flip side is that the teams who have created problems
for Arsenal this season - like Bolton - have big, physical
strikers. Zlatan Ibrahimovic and David Trezeguet are big men and
very good in the air. With Vieira forward for set pieces and
Emerson also very good in the air, Juventus should cause
problems.

"The other factor is the big difference in the age and
maturity of the Arsenal and Juventus players. Arsenal are in
transition and have a team which will improve over time while
Juventus are at their peak now. That might well influence the
outcome over two legs."

So if you're thinking about parting with some hard-earned
cash before tonight's game, think hard. Are Juventus really the
outsiders? This one really looks too close to call.

Copyright 2016 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source

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